ART Restaurant: Pumpkin Milk Chocolate Mocha Mousse Cake

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Every Thanksgiving, there is always pumpkin pie, which makes ART Restaurant's Pastry Chef Tara Sedor wonder, "Where's the chocolate?" Combine two favorite treats into a cake, and now you're talking about a real dessert.

Sift cake flour, cinnamon, and baking soda, and set aside. In an electric mixer with a wire whip attachment, whip eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin puree on low speed until incorporated. Fold in dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula until it comes together.

Pour batter in to a round greased cake pan lined with a circle of parchment paper in the bottom. Bake cake for about thirty minutes or until a cake tester comes out with just a few crumbs sticking to it. Cool completely in pan, then cut cake in to two pieces horizontally (making to cake discs).

Melt chocolate and coffee mixture in a double boiler. Stir until smooth and completely melted. Remove chocolate from heat and let cool until a small dab on your upper lip feels slightly cool, about 85 degrees.

Fold whipped cream carefully in to cooled milk chocolate mixture; the mousse should seem very soft.

Assembly

In a springform pan, sit in cake layer on the bottom. Then pour 1-2 cups of milk chocolate mousse in the springform pan, making the two layers the same height. Then, add the other cake layer and top off with the same amount of mousse. Reserve any left over mousse to decorate the cake or just eat. Place directly in the refrigerator and chill over night so that it can set.

The next day, unmold the cake from the pan and decorate with any left over mousse, chocolate shavings, etc.